Ill. Senate OKs development of coal-fed power plant

A power development company's proposal to build a $3.5 billion electric generating plant in Taylorville, Ill., passed the state Senate on its third try Tuesday, 30-28.

The bill, SB 678, now must head to the House for approval, though the House is unlikely to vote on it before February.

The proposal, from Nebraska-based Tenaska Energy, has been on the table in various forms since 2008, but didn't make its way to the floor until this year's spring session, when it was approved by the House and failed in the Senate.

At the start of the fall veto session, the measure passed in executive committee, but failed in the Senate. Senate President John Cullerton was able to use a legislative maneuver to try a second time to get the votes needed to pass the bill. It returned Tuesday for a third time.

The bill includes additional provisions for the purchase of renewable energy, energy efficiency and distributed electric generation. It attempts to allay the fears of businesses who, in the original bill, wanted a limit on how much their electricity rates could increase because of the project.

Environmental groups have argued that the plant will add unnecessary pollution and cost consumers. Residential customers under the revamped legislation would have increases capped at 2 percent over 30 years; all other customers would see a cap between 3 and 4 percent over the same time period to subsidize the cost of the project.

"This is like a bad horror movie where the monster can keep coming back and back at ratepayer's wallets until Springfield comes to their senses," said Jack Darin, director at the Sierra Club's Illinois Chapter, who likened it to a "giant lump of coal from Springfield just in time for the holidays."

Josh Mogerman, spokesman for the Natural resources Defense Council, said despite the Tenaska project's "clean coal" label, it will still create billions of pounds of air pollution. Mogerman said each senatorial district will pay $50 million on average to support the project and businesses would pay $5.7 billion dollars.

"The legislation gives an out-of-state company, Tenaska, exorbitant profits through a 30-year contract committing all Illinoisans to subsidize the plant for at least a generation. The legislation...has already been voted down three times, for good reason," he said.

Tenaska isn't the only energy company seeking 30-year contracts to make its project a reality. Coal-to-gas developers in Chicago and downstate Illinois have gained similar approvals from the legislature in recent years, and a Department of Energy-backed project that would sequester carbon dioxide emissions is also seeking 30-year contracts from the state to purchase the power it will produce. Developers say the long term contracts are necessary for investors.